Friday, August 22, 2008

The story of Daedalus returned @ 2008 Beijing Olympics 北京奧運開幕


In Greek mythology, the “plan” of the labyrinth was to contain the monster Minotaur, of the child given birth by the human beastly thoughts. When Daedalus was imprisoned by his own creation of the labyrinth, he alleviated himself to a "section" viewing to resolve a "plan" puzzle- the building of the wings to levitate one’s thought and body to higher altitude. However, the story ended with the tragic death of Daedalus’s son Icarus who was exhilarated by flight and flew beyond his capacity.

In 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, the mass game was a simulacra of a digitized labyrinth-like environment. Human mass performances synchronized with the particles display on the mega LCD, of embodiment with symbols, mass and spectacular, bodies become an extension of the pixels metrics. The labyrinth-like animation was the merging of pixels and bodily dynamics, with guiding movement of instructions emitted from blue tooth-like device attached to each performer, it alleviated the mass game to a digitized conducting performance. At the final scene of body levitation, the chasing of the Olympic script was the return of Daedalus’s curse. The imprisonment of the endless “plan” in disguise as “section”, tempting one's ego to go beyond the limit.

No comments: